Various Services for Companies,
Consultants, Coaches and Individuals

Thornhill provides customisable online multi-rater feedback systems with accompanying consulting and coaching services, mostly for the purposes of management development.

We combine professional organisational psychology insight with innovative software systems to offer both standard and bespoke solutions to organisations, business schools, consultants, executive coaches and individuals. 

Online 360° questionnaire administration

The 360° feedback model allows managers to invite anonymous behavioural feedback from a number of colleagues, some at a higher level, some at the same level, and some reporting to him/her. Typically this feedback is used to assist the manager in improving his/her leadership performance. Feedback is generally in the form of ratings on a number of leadership competence scales, such as interpersonal skills or performance management.

Thornhill has a library of 360° questionnaire items, based on the “Head, Heart, and Hands” model of leadership, and we have consultants with experience in leadership training and development, to assist in customising these questionnaires for your specific needs. Existing questionnaires can be used as they are, or adapted for the company, or new questionnaires created for the required purpose.

Individual reports are generated in real-time for the managers/leaders receiving feedback. These reports provide an overall profile and a detailed analysis of the ratings on each item, plus comparison tables to identify trends. Provision is also made for raters to type in comments.

Although the Thornhill system can be used to deliver any questionnaire, our focus is mostly on standard and customised behavioural feedback questionnaires for management and leadership development purposes. Customised questionnaires by definition lack the kind of statistical data characteristics of psychometric instruments, but they have the advantage of focusing on what is most important for the particular group of people using them.

Thornhill can provide support for companies wishing to provide feedback to groups of managers or individuals, and to consultants or coaches wishing to provide a feedback service to their clients. We also offer the service to individuals who wish to obtain feedback for personal development.

The online delivery system means that the geographical location of the participants and raters is irrelevant. The system is available anywhere that people have access to the internet, and is online 24 hours a day. The raters enter their answers to the questions directly into the database, so administration is quick, inexpensive, easy and accurate.

For companies 

A Thornhill consultant will assist you to identify whether and how a 360° questionnaire can meet your requirements and, if so, whether to use an existing questionnaire, adapt it, or create a new questionnaire. We will discuss how you intend to provide the feedback, assist if required with ensuring that the process is supportive and helpful to the participants, and then look together at the practical implementation.

The next decision is whether to brand the questionnaire and report with your company’s logo and colours. See the Steps for a description of the process from there.

For consultants and coaches

We are particularly interested in working with partners to develop new uses for the Thornhill system. The software is highly customisable, and we would be happy to discuss with you any of the following options:

• Branding an existing questionnaire with your name. We will provide you with a login to monitor responses and print reports for your clients when needed.
• Creating a new questionnaire and report for your purposes, which we will administer on your behalf.
• Designing a new use for the delivery software in support of your business.

For individuals

If you are a manager who wishes to obtain feedback independently, please do contact us and we will gladly assist.

The feedback report provides a valuable opportunity for individual developmental coaching. A key component of the 360° process is the correct management of how feedback is communicated. For this reason, in order to gain maximum learning from the feedback process, it is recommended that the content of the report is debriefed by a qualified HR practitioner/coach. This facilitator will go through the report to explain how to interpret the feedback. A Thornhill coach will gladly facilitate the feedback with you, or we can work directly with a coach of your choice.

For any of the above or to discuss other ideas, please contact us

Work We Have Done

Thornhill’s online multi-rater feedback system is flexible and this allows for many different possible functions.

We have run a variety of projects to meet the unique and specific requirements of each client. Some examples follow:

• A large firm needing a consistent feedback process for managers throughout Africa

• A company that needed a process for providing managers with feedback for their South African and North American operations. Thornhill helped the HR director write questions based on their company values, administered it on both continents, and then provided one-on-one feedback coaching, using the company’s video conferencing facilities.

• Business schools offering customised programmes for client companies

• A business school needing to enable MBA study group members to provide feedback to each other on their group skills and general performance half-way through the year

• Coaches needing to provide clients with leadership feedback

• A global organisation requiring their questionnaire to be translated into different languages

• A psychometric test provider needing an efficient and cost effective engine for a 360 version of its web-based test

• A company wanting to create their own questionnaires for different departments, using a database of their own questions

• A training company that needed pre and post assessments of participants’ competence in the dimensions they were training

• A company needing to sample opinions in certain departments midway between climate surveys

• A consulting company that needed to offer its clients branded, customised 360° feedback as part of an organisational development intervention

• A partnership needing a process for electing a governing board that was fair, independent and could offer two rounds of voting without an interval. Thornhill instantly provided a short list for a second round of voting.

• A large retail company requiring a leadership survey

• A law firm wanting evaluations for senior associates applying for partnership

• A large firm needing an internal transformation and employee survey

• A selection process for a leadership development programme in the banking sector

• A major bank needing an ongoing quarterly upward feedback survey for managers throughout Africa

• A university needing a customised 360° questionnaire, and the results from other questionnaires (psychometric tests) that they had administered to be included in the final individual 360° feedback report

• A multinational mobile telecommunications company wanting a customised competency assessment tool for their managers

• An economics-based consulting firm requiring an upward feedback process

• A plastics manufacturer requiring customised employee opinion and customer satisfaction surveys

• Team performance reviews to identify each team member’s role and contribution

• A global professional firm requiring a customised ethics line reporting tool

• An emotional intelligence organisation requiring customised systems and questionnaires.

Thornhill is willing to consider your request, even if it is not described here. Please contact us to discuss how we can best enable you to help your executives grow and add even more value to your business.